The Best of @PubMediaFans — Edition #3

The week’s news in public media… through Twitter.

Roly Ortega
Jul 23, 2017 · 9 min read

Here we go again. This is Edition #3 of The Best of @PubMediaFans, where every week we give you the week’s latest news from the world of public media, as told by our Twitter page @PubMediaFans. Without wait, here is this week’s news and other notes.


News:

StoryCorps wants to be a part of a Union for its employees, the same way some of NPR’s employees have been in a union since 1975. They want a raise and more transparency as part of that push to form a union.

NPR has a union. StoryCorps wants the same.

It seems like there’s a mix of good news and bad news for the upcoming House proposal on public broadcasting. It would grant $445 Million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) but would lose out funding for the Interconnection program. That program is critical because it helps many PBS affiliates air shows like NOVA, Frontline and the PBS Newshour, among others as well as with NPR affiliates air Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Fresh Air, among others.

No Interconnection program could leave many public media stations from carrying national PBS and NPR programs.

A big congratulations is in order for the PBS Newshour’s Judy Woodruff. She’ll be the recipient of this year’s inaugural Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award from @pressfreedom — The Committee to Protect Journalists.

Renamed from the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award in 2016 to honor the late veteran PBS journalist and former CPJ board member, the award is for those who show extraordinary achievement for the cause of press freedom around the world. The BBMA was award from 1991 to 2016.

Woodruff co-hosted the PBS Newshour with Ifill from 2013 until her passing on November 14th, 2016 from breast and endometrial cancer. She was only 61.

Judy Woodruff will be the recipient of an award that honors her late PBS Newshour colleague and friend.

It looks like KQED in San Francisco has gone back to the Newsrooms of the 80s. A big ransomware attack last month has affected many of KQED’s operations and in ways that they currently gather news content and programming.

As of this post, they are still running at a low capacity in terms of technology and is taking them hours to deliver news and yet, they’re still delivering it without viewers or listeners noticing any changes. They hope to get it back up to speed soon.

KQED is running a temporary low capacity in terms of technology after a ransomware attack took out much of their internet operations.

This has been mentioned before on our Twitter but two of NPR’s podcasts, Planet Money and How I Built This will soon make their on-air debuts across many public radio stations. Planet Money pretty much explains the world economy and business in ways that many Americans can understand and the usually half-hour podcasts are available twice weekly so it could be available as an hour-long program on the radio.

Meanwhile, How I Built This is hosted by TED Radio Hour and NPR’s first-ever kids podcast WOW in the World’s Guy Raz. He talks to innovators and idealists about companies or ideas or even moments that they built upon to create something that can make a difference all around the world. This usually hour-long weekly podcast could be available as an hour-long program on the radio.

It looks like two of NPR’s podcasts will soon make its way to local public radio stations.

Due to budget cutbacks, 89.9 KUAC-FM in Fairbanks, Alaska has been forced to discontinue its HD Radio operations. Since late June, KUAC-FM has only operated an analog signal once again and its HD Radio subchannels are now only available on KUAC-TV 9 on at least three of its digital subchannels: 9.6, 9.7 and 9.8

  • Channel 9.6 = KUAC1 — NPR/Classical/Jazz
  • Channel 9.7 = KUAC2 — NPR/BBC/AAA
  • Channel 9.8 = KUAC3 — NPR/BBC/Classical

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports that KUAC’s HD transmitter — which costs between $8,000 — $10,000/year to operate — will be cleaned out and put into standby mode in case 89.9 KUAC-FM’s analog transmitter fails.

89.9 KUAC-FM in Fairbanks has been forced to discontinue its HD Radio programming due to budget cutbacks. They’re still available on KUAC-TV 9 though.

But it wasn’t the only station to recently discontinue its HD Radio operations. Since Friday, June 30th, AM 870 and 90.5 FM WKAR Radio too had to discontinue its HD Radio transmitters.

Though no reason was mentioned, AM 870 (all-news and talk) and 90.5 FM (news/classical/jazz/folk) are, once again, broadcasting under analog-ONLY signals which are still available.

However, all services are still available online at their website as well as their smartphone app, which includes 90.5 FM’s former HD2 signal, the 24/7 classical music station WKAR Classical 24/7. The former HD3 signal was a simulcast of AM 870 since its daytime-ONLY station but remains on translator station 94.5 FM W233CH in East Lansing to keep the AM 870 service going after sundown.

No more HD Radio either for both of WKAR’s radio stations. Thankfully, all services remain streaming online.

Brown University owns student-run station 95.5 WBRU in Providence. But the University wants to sell it and if that’s the case, their modern rock music format could soon be ending. It could even go off-the-air for good if possible or become a classical music station or even become, yet another repeater, of NPR’s flagship Rhode Island affiliate, Rhode Island Public Radio (RIPR). With the sell of this station, the possibilities are endless.

WBRU could either go off-air or have its rock format changed after Brown University has announced that it wants to sell WBRU.

After first tweeting about it, we received an update on the situation. Aaron Reed, Chief Engineer for RIPR, tweeted at us that through a story from WJAR NBC 10 in Providence — New Bedford, RIPR is NOT involved in the sale which means that it will either become a commercial station with a different format or go off-air completely.

RIPR is not involved. That means WBRU will air either a different format under commercial operations or just go off-air.

After hosing The Takeaway from WNYC in New York City and Public Radio International (PRI) since the beginning, John Hockenberry has decided to leave the program. Todd Zwillich, the program’s Washington correspondent, will be the interim host until they find a replacement.

After 9 years hosing the program, John Hockenberry has decided to leave the program at the beginning of August.

In order to give NPR more transparency in its opinion pieces (or can be called as commentary), NPR’s Ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen has announced that the organization will clearly label its opinion pieces online starting next week on Tuesday, July 25th.

According to Ms. Jensen…

Online content that is currently labeled as “Commentary” — including pieces on the 13.7: Cosmos & Culture blog and the NPR Ombudsman column — will instead be called “Opinion,” highlighted in bright blue. Book, movie and television reviews will also get a new blue “Review” label.

Opinions will be labeled more clearly on NPR’s website starting this Tuesday.

Congrats are in order for three public broadcasters: WLRN and KOCE — PBS SoCal and WUSF.

First off to South Florida’s WLRN, the secondary PBS (TV 17) and main NPR (91.3 FM) for Miami — Fort Lauderdale. They won two first-place awards at the 2017 Society of Professional Journalists’ Sunshine State Awards. One of the awards was to the WLRN news team and digital director Teresa Frontado for Best News Website and to reporter Rowan Moore Gerety for Investigative Reporting on the Radio.

Two first-place awards were given to WLRN at the 2017 SPJ Florida Awards.

The next broadcaster deserving congrats is Los Angeles’ main PBS affiliate, KOCE 50, otherwise known as PBS SoCal. At this year’s L.A. Emmys, KOCE won two awards: one for Independent Programming (To Climb A Gold Mountain) and the other for Culture/History (Bill W.: The Creative Force Behind Alcoholics Anonymous).

KOCE won an L.A. Emmy for Independent Programming.
KOCE also won an L.A. Emmy for Culture/History.

Finally, the last one for congrats is WUSF, the secondary PBS (TV 16) and main NPR (89.7 FM) for Tampa — St. Petersburg — Sarasota and all of Tampa Bay. Mostly won from the radio side, it won three first-place honors, also at the 2017 SPJ’s SSA awards, including Feature Reporting, Government and Politics Reporting and possibly the most distinguished of them all: Anchor of the Year. That award goes to WUSF’s All Things Considered host Lisa Peakes. Judges said this about Peakes:

“One of the finest voices and delivery I have ever heard. Authoritative, commanding, pleasant. Perfect variety kept me engaged throughout. Model of excellence.”

Awards were also won by WUSF Radio recently at the 2017 SPJ’s SSA awards, including Anchor of the Year.

91.5 KRCC broadcasts to Colorado Springs and has two other full-power satellite stations to help broadcast the entire area. Just recently, it has added a third full-power satellite that’s been broadcasting since last month. Its for the Northwest portions of the viewing area and at 100-watts of power from 89.5 KILE in Woodland Park. KRCC has applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to change those call letters to KWCC (Woodland Park Colorado College).

Another new full-power satellite station is in order for 91.5 KRCC, serving Colorado Springs.

Programming Changes:

South Dakota Public Broadcasting (SDPB) is currently undergoing some changes right now at their facilities and their upgrading it. So for this week, their two-hour call-in show In The Moment on SDPB Radio, was reduced to just one hour (11:00 a.m. — 12:00 p.m. CT/10:00 — 11:00 a.m. MT) while Here and NOW (a co-production between NPR and 90.9 WBUR Boston) was given the extra hour (12:00 — 1:00 p.m. CT/11:00 a.m. — 12:00 p.m. MT) while the changes were being made.

In The Moment was not being in the moment as a two-hour show since upgrading the facilities meant it had to be an hour instead.

Programming changes are being made to West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WVPB) after a $1 million budget cutback plus as a result of their recent viewers/listeners’ surveys. The changes affect both WVPB Television and Radio.

Changes all around are in the works for both WVPB Television and Radio.

Technical Problems:

This was supposed to be temporary but it seems like every week, there’s always a new station that ends up having some difficulty with its signal.

This week on Friday, we found out that Capital Public Radio, which composes of four stations serving Northern California from the state’s capital, had two of its signals have technical problems. 91.3 KUOP in Stockton and 90.5 KKTO in Lake Tahoe.

Early in the day on Friday, two stations from Capital Public Radio had signal difficulties.

However, later in the day, 90.5 KKTO’s signal got better so listeners in that region can listen to it again while 91.3 KUOP’s signal is still having problems. As of 4:30 p.m. ET Friday, the signal was still getting fixed.

KKTO’s signal was restored! KUOP’s? Not so much. Still being fixed though.

But within just a few hours after 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT on Friday, the 91.3 KUOP signal was fully restored and now every station within the Capital Public Radio network is broadcasting at full power once again.

It’s good to hear that Stockton and Modesto have its Capital Public Radio station working again.

We’re putting this here because even though all feeds work fine, some of the internet radio devices may have a problem with this:

88.9 WQCS is the ONLY NPR station that’s based within a WPB or Treasure Coast area. In this case, the Treasure Coast and specifically, Fort Pierce. They’re currently upgrading their automation system that affects the internet streams of WQCS. They are still replacing it but should have no affect to the internet streams. However, they do offer links in case WQCS’ online stream at their website doesn’t work and this mainly applies to radio devices that have Wi-Fi on them.

Streaming WQCS should be no problem. However, due to a change in system, it may be hard to hear especially for Internet Radio Wi-Fi devices.

Events:

Here’s a new section for our weekly-sorta-look-like newspaper… Events! We’ll mention events that are taking place that involve PBS or NPR personnel or even events that involve the participation of both the PBS and NPR member stations in a particular community.

NPR’s David Greene, co-host of NPR’s Morning Edition, will be in Indianapolis on Friday, August 25th. Indianapolis is home to flagship PBS member station WFYI Channel 20 and flagship NPR member station 90.1 WFYI-FM and he’ll join Listen Up — WFYI’s On-Air to Indy Series for a nice and interesting conversation.

Doors open at 7:00 p.m. with the conversation staring at 7:30 p.m. General Admission tickets at $25 and $100 for the VIP package which includes a David Greene meet-and-greet. All proceeds benefit WFYI Public Media, the owners of TV 20 and 90.1 FM.

If your in Indianapolis on Friday, August 25th, then stop by to WFYI’s studios for a conversation with NPR’s David Greene.

But Mr. Greene won’t be the only one from Morning Edition who’s holding a live event for a local member station. Steve Inskeep will also deliver an event and strangely enough, it too will also be in Indiana. Bloomington this time, home to 103.7 WFIU-FM. An Evening with Steve Inskeep will take place on Friday, September 15th at 8:00 p.m. ET at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in Bloomington and for a $240 VIP Package, you and a guest will get admission to the event (best seats in the house as WFIU has promised) plus a meet and greet with Mr. Inskeep and a “Happy Hour” reception that starts 90 minutes before the conversation. It will include a Q&A session as well with the audience.

It’s not just you Mr. Greene going to Indiana. Hoosier Steve Inskeep will be visiting WFIU on Sept. 15th for a conversation there.

Trivia:

Another new section of the newsletter even though this won’t be seen all the time as well.

Did you know that before KOCE-TV 50 in Huntington Beach — Los Angeles used the KOCE call signs, it used to belong to a member of the Coast Guard sea vessel that was named after a famous sea captain, John H. Couch. He wanted Orange County to have a public television station of its own so he relinquished the call letters to the FCC so that the then-new public television station can use them and so on November 20th, 1972, KOCE-TV 50 went on-the-air. Interesting, right? Today, its now the main PBS affiliate for SoCal and is the third most-watched PBS affiliate in the country.

Interesting history and facts about KOCE-TV 50, the flagship PBS affiliate for Los Angeles.

That’s it for this Sunday’s weekly newsletter, showcasing the week’s news in public media. If there are any other news or changes that were missed by me, please e-mail me: roly4266@live.com or by messaging us on Twitter @PubMediaFans. I know there was something missed and if there was, then please let me know.

Have a great week!

Public Media Fans

Supporting PBS, APT and APTS (TV), NPR, PRI, APM and PRX (Radio). Also supporting Ind. public TV and Radio stations. | We’re the same folks as @PubMediaFans on Twitter.

Roly Ortega

Written by

Television news junkie who likes to talk about local media as well as sports, Family Guy and other stuff.

Public Media Fans

Supporting PBS, APT and APTS (TV), NPR, PRI, APM and PRX (Radio). Also supporting Ind. public TV and Radio stations. | We’re the same folks as @PubMediaFans on Twitter.

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